The digital pharmaceutical advertising market is proving to be a growing and changing market. Gradually over the past couple of years, more innovative tactics have become more relevant. Rich media is one tactic that has become more widely accepted not only by pharma companies and advertisers, but also by publishers. Some of you may be asking, what is rich media and why is it becoming more popular?

Rich Media Banner—This is an ad that can contain images and/or video and involves some kind of user interaction which can elicit strong user response. The ads can include multiple levels of content in one placement.

The benefits of using rich media:

Ads Expand—The creative expands when the user interacts with the main image (for example, by clicking or mousing over it). This allows for a larger area to display more robust information, creative artwork and messaging while still being able to include a scrolling ISI and creative assets (videos, clinical data, polls/surveys, etc).

Breaks Through Banner Blindness—Banner blindness is a phenomenon in web usability where visitors to a website consciously or subconsciously ignore banner-like information, which can also be called ad blindness or banner noise. Rich media ads are more attention-grabbing and interactive, which helps separate them from being banner-like. Rich media banners also have proven to outperform standard display banners in key metrics such as time spent and interaction rate.

Information—Rich media banners can contain a significant amount of information, especially compared to standard display ads. This information can consist of videos, charts, clinical data, polls/surveys, or multiple creative messages. This allows advertisers to reach a larger target audience while also providing more options for multi-indication brands in one banner ad.

Metrics—The metrics in rich media banners are also greatly improved. Rich media offers standard metrics and also custom metrics. Standard metrics are more commonly known and consist of metrics like total display time, number of expansions, interactive impressions, and interactive rate. Custom metrics are added to components within a rich media banner, and only three different types are used: exits, counters and timer. These custom metrics can actually track a variety of calls to action within a rich media banner, like links within the banner, time spent on certain screens or data, and of course any click-through calls to action. These robust metrics offer a huge advantage over standard display banners which rely heavily on impressions and clicks.

User Experience—Overall user experience is improved through the use of rich media. The creative messaging can be so robust within a rich media banner that a call to action such as a click-through is not required. This actually allows users to stay on the same page where they saw the rich media banner, as opposed to clicking on a non-rich media banner that takes them to an entirely new page.

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